David Bain's 111 call 'unusual', says ambulance officer

David Bain listening to evidence at his murder retrial. Pool photo

The jury has heard the voice of David Bain crying: "They're all dead, they're all dead. I came home and they're all dead" at the High Court in Christchurch today.

Bain made the call sometime after coming home from his paper round on the morning of June 20, 1994.

He called 111 and told an ambulance officer "they are all dead. My family are all dead, hurry up".

The ambulance officer who took the call described it as "unusual" because Bain was able to give him basic information.

Thomas Dempsey said it was easy to get Bain's telephone number, address, name and what happened.

He said in his experience of answering hundreds of 111 calls from people who are "overwhelmed by a situation", callers often find it difficult to give simple information.

Under cross examination by Bain's lawyer Michael Reed, QC, Mr Dempsey confirmed that he had no formal training or qualifications in "voice stress training".

Mr Reed asked him if he was aware that voice stress "cannot be controlled at will".

Mr Dempsey said he was not.

Two Telecom staff members also gave evidence on the 111 call.

A supervisor of emergency calls for Telecom, later given name suppression, said at first staff didn't know if the caller was a "nutter" or not.

She said that Telecom staff decided that it was a genuine call and connected the caller with the ambulance service.

Under cross-examination by Mr Reed, she told the court that she had given a short statement and a longer statement to police but police wanted her to sign a shorter statement.

Asked if she was "happy about that", she replied: "no".

The supervisor confirmed to the court that she contacted Bain supporter and book author Joe Karam.

She said she believed the 111 call was made before 7am.

The timing of the call is important to the Crown and defence case.

She said she was normally joined by another staff member at 6.55am when a Telecom service was switched to her office in Christchurch from another part of the country.

But she said that on June 20, 1994, the staff member who handled the switch-over was not present when Bain's call came through.

"The comment was made that she missed all the excitement," she said.

The Telecom operator who spoke to Bain told the court that she stayed on the phone up until police got inside the Bain home.

Frances Edwards said Bain "was groaning a lot and hard to hear lots of times".

She said when she first picked up the phone; she asked the caller whether they wanted to speak to fire, ambulance or police.

"The male at the other end was groaning and didn't know what he wanted. He said his father was dead," Ms Edwards said.

She said he did not know what he wanted so she put him through to the ambulance service.

Ms Edwards said a short time later, the ambulance officer came back on the line and asked her to keep Bain talking so the call could be traced.

"So I just carried on talking to David Bain.

"He was groaning a lot. He sounded like he had respiratory trouble, it sounded like he had asthma," Ms Edwards said.

She said at one point Bain swore at her as she tried to calm him down.

Various media organisations applied to broadcast the recording of the 111 emergency call but the application was turned down by Justice Panckhurst.